Book Review: Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke

Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The two most powerful nations on Earth are reaching for the stars when suddenly the stars reach down, and everyone waits. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke is one of the most important novels of “the golden age of science fiction” with its surprising twist and interesting ending.

Given the time the book was published and how Clarke projected the “future” timeframe that the story took place, it didn’t hurt the overall story. The benevolent alien contact trope, but with a unique hidden agenda twist was good as well. The surprise twist of the appearance of the aliens was cool, though the later explanation at the end about how their appearance was ingrained in human consciousness was disappointing though it went with the ending of the book. Clarke’s point-of-view characters were a bit flat just there to move the narrative along, which overall was fine. Yet it was Clarke’s prologue for the 1990 edition—which I read—unfortunately undermined the story even before I had begun that I wish that Clark had decided to make it an epilogue. Overall, I thought this novel was okay, I wasn’t dissuaded from reading other of Clarke’s works.

Childhood’s End is one of science fiction’s most important works from its golden age and put Arthur C. Clarke on the literary map.

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